Fr-Agile

Performance [morning]

Friday, 8 August. I leave the Warren Cottage after 4am. It is dark and windy and rain is pouring down on me. By the time I reach the blocks I know that my clothes - supposed to be weather-proof - aren't waterproof at all.

By 5am I have tied the yellow blocks to the fixings prepared the previous day.

The yellow glows in the twilight and when the rain stops the changing light makes me forget that I am wet to the skin.

The plan was to start filming at 6am when the water reached the blocks. However at six a thick cloud was shedding its cargo again into the wind. No good conditions for Jo's precious video camera... Sheltered in the car we waited for better times.

Finally, by 7:30 filming started. The northeasterly wind brought in the tide fast.

Agitated North Sea - and bitterly cold air in mid summer.

40 minutes later all the defence blocks had almost disappeared.

And within the next hour - while the light and atmosphere were changing constantly - all the yellow blocks, one by one, swam ashore.

Stranded

[midday]

The Silicone tubing which connected the 'yellow dots' with their concrete counterparts is very pull resistant and elastic. Yet the power of the waves, colliding with the defense blocks and the embedded metal bits, cut through the cords leaving the buoys stranded - like the longshore drift from the Holderness Coast that builds Spurn over time.

Sea-drawings

[afternoon]

In the afternoon after the tide receded: The tubes were so flexible and light, they moved easily with the waves. The Sea created knots and plaits and drawings.

Building buoys

The floating blocks are almost ready. My old sewing machine did her job and I'm thankful she didn't leave me in the lurch. Now we just have to drink one more bottle of Volvic. Then I can do the last bit.

Yesterday evening I did a bit of 'project management'. Stefan's prophecy is that everything will be different ... however the three days we are planning to stay on Spurn to me will be pretty much defined by the tides and when the sea gives the defence blocks free. It is first quarter moon, so the tides are moderate - just four metres difference between high and low tide. At full or new moon it can be up to 7m.

The red line in the tide table shows when about the defence blocks are accessible without me being swept away. If all goes well and the weather cooperates Jo will be recording the movement of the Yellow in the rising tide next Friday early in the morning.


Today I gathered all the bits and pieces such as tools, nuts and bolts, ropes. As usual everything takes longer than planned. And the question remains: what did I forget?

Buoys

Almost all materials I need to build some floating buoys have now been delivered. For example high visibility fabric, ropes, silicon tubing (the kind of tubes often used in hospitals for all types of fluids) and empty water bottles. So, towards the end of this week I will be able to actually build the floats. They will represent some of the yellow dots in the map about Shifting Spurn.

In order to find out the right size for these swimming devices I marked them into an image. - This is the way to do it when you haven't got a car to quickly drive to Spurn.

Rising tide

We walked to neck where the sea defence blocks are. The concrete blocks in the images below have been anti-tank blocks. Now they defend Spurn against the sea.

We arrived shortly after low tide and stayed until it was almost high tide. The rising tide was a stunning performance. The waves came in with enormous force to then collide with the blocks. Three days after full moon, this was a strong tide. - When we left after 6pm most of the blocks were submerged and the water level was still rising.

I had prepared some floats to try out another time but had them with me. They looked just ridiculous … far too small and not appropriate. So, I’ve changed and adapted my idea. It’s become simpler. And the materials I’d like to use will be stronger.

The subtleties of english language

We've been to Spurn last Sunday, Jo, Stefan and I. Finally an almost dry day after a rainy period. First we met Andrew Gibson and I learned that Spurn neck was never breached - as it said in my blog - but only washed-over! The breach was further south where the chalk bank is. So, I've updated my vocabulary and  changed these posts (About Spurn).

Books about Spurn

• Spurn Lifeboat Station, the first hundred years: the history of Spurn Lifeboat Station from 1810 to May 1911 / Benfell, Roy
• Memories of Spurn in the 1880's / Jarratt, George
• The people along the sand: the Spurn Peninsula and Kilnsea, a history 1800-2000 / Crowther, Jan
• Sailing the rails: a new history of Spurn and its military railway Frost, Howard M.
• A history of the Spurn lighthouses De Boer, G.
• Spurn Head postal history / Ward, Ronald
• Growing up on Spurn Head / Kendall, Ronald
• The Spurn Head Railway: the history of a unique military line 3rd ed. Hartley, Kenneth E.
• An historical atlas of East Yorkshire / Neave, Susan

Shifting Spurn

I had a closer look at an aerial view of Spurn's 'neck' - the area where the sea defence blocks are. I compared it with the same section of the 1852 map* and tweaked the two maps to the same scale. The image shows the maps overlaid. See the enlarged version.

The full yellow line shows what remains of the Spurn peninsula at an "ordinary spring tide" in 1852. The dashed yellow line running vertically through the middle of the image roughly outlines the former shore of Spurn towards the Humber - a strip of sand and shingles. On the enlarged version of the image you can see that the group of sea defence blocks are positioned between these two yellow lines. So, the defence blocks spreading along the seaside today in this area happen to outline the riverside of Spurn in the 1850's.

I'm thinking of the static blocks of stone - meant to protect against the dynamic forces of wind, weather and waves - and the shifting landscape. Taking these aspects into account I'd like to mark a stretch of the defence blocks which by chance outline some of the 1852 Spurn. I will need to have another look at the real Spurn - the tides in this area and the actual blocks.

*with thanks to the Dept. of Geography, University of Hull

Another look at the sea defences

While the tide was receding last Thursday we walked along the sea side. I continued to have another look at the sea defense blocks. They are positioned at the neck of Spurn - the most vulnerable part of the spit I think. The images are views from the same spot towards south and north.
The image below shows an aerial view of the scene. Interestingly the old road is marked as it must have been before it was washed away. Now it would lead into the sand and towards the sea. (The almost continuous line of blocks on the beach are the remains of the road that has been swept away.)


Click here to see a larger section.

Tides at the tip of Spurn

Last Thursday we - Jo and I - went to Spurn for a day. I wanted to find out more about the movements of the tides at the tip of the peninsula.

First I felt confused whether we were really at the tip. Instead of the open sea - as I expected - there was a strip of land at the horizon. It's not easy to orientate yourself when there's water all around you.

A look at the OS map shows that Spurn points straight towards the opposite shore of the Humber - a fact I wasn't aware of previously...




I marked the line where high tide left some debris at about 11:10 with a flag. Another flag marked the edge of the water when we arrived at 13:10.

I came back 4 hours later after a walk - almost at low tide. I measured in steps how much the water had receded from high to low tide. It must have been almost 60m. And according to the tide table the water level receded by about 4.4 meters in height.

The dark cloud in the image threw water at me horizontally when I walked back to Jo who was waiting for me in the car. I arrived there soaking wet - luckily only at my backside.

Present Spurn

The present peninsula started to form around 1600. In 1849 a storm breached Spurn (see strip12 on the map below) and "the peninsula became a string of islands" at high tide.
From the 1850’s onwards sea defences kept Spurn artificially in the same position. During the World wars it became a military stronghold - a reason to further upgrade the sea defences.
In 1961 the Ministry of Defence sold Spurn to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. The trust now runs the area as a nature reserve. The sea defences are left to deteriorate and the natural process can take over again. - Today erosion continues to eat into Spurn. At spring tide wash-overs of the neck occur from time to time.

(amended 21 July)

The map shows coastal changes around Spurn over the last 150 years. It combines 1st edition OS maps (1851/52) with recent aerial photographs (c Getmapping 2000).
Source: www.hull.ac.uk/erosion

I found this info in the following files:
Development of Spurn Peninsula
The Holderness Coastline - The Management of Coastal Erosion
SPURN HEAD by V.J. May

update 2019: all the original links as above (in small print) are no more active, but please see:
https://www.urbanrim.org.uk/cache/Pye&Blott_Holderness_Erosion.pdf